Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Isaiah 49. So good to see everybody and
so happy when everybody is well and here. That makes me happy. We've been
looking at Isaiah 49 and it's God our Father speaking to the
Lord Jesus. and we're gonna just pick up
here in verse 8, Isaiah 49, 8. Thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable
time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped
thee, and I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant
of the people to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the
desolate heritages. that thou mayest say to the prisoners,
go forth, to them that are in darkness, show yourselves. They
shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high
places. They shall not hunger nor thirst,
neither shall the heat nor sun smite them. For he that hath
mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water
shall he guide them. And I will make all my mountains
away, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall
come from far, and lo, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Sinai. It's the land of thorns. Our
subject is Christ, our covenant. God the Father gave his Son to
be the covenant. Our Lord Jesus is the covenant.
He said in verse 8, I will give thee for a covenant of the people. Christ Jesus is the covenant
for God's elect people. He is the covenant for God's
elect people. The gospel we preach is not a
yes and no gospel. There's no maybes involved in
this gospel. All the promises of God in Christ
are yes, and in Christ, amen, and to the glory of God by us. This gospel is a sure, certain
salvation because Christ is the covenant. He is the covenant. Now everything that God the Father
promised the Lord Jesus, God the Father promised all his people
in and by Christ. So you that believe him, when
you hear these promises God makes to the Lord Jesus, you can hear
them made to you through Christ and by Christ. He is the covenant. He is the covenant. Now, first
of all, the Lord promised to hear our Lord Jesus, and He did. It says in verse 8, Thus saith
the Lord, An acceptable time have I heard thee. An acceptable
time have I heard thee. The acceptable time means the
time that's pleasing to God. It's the time God appointed.
It's the time in which He's satisfied. That's the acceptable time. The
Lord Jesus served God in perfect faith. None of his people could. We couldn't. And so Christ came
and served the Father in perfect faith on our behalf. Our faithful
head trusted the Father in perfect obedience. He is God, but as a man, he depended
on God, and he prayed to the Father, and the Father heard
him, and the Father helped Him. Now to show us this, I want you
to see a couple of Scriptures. Let's look over at John 12. John
12. And look at verse 27. The Lord is on His way to the
cross. He's on His way to the to the
Garden of Gethsemane, about to go up to Jerusalem, and he says
in John 12, 27, now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.
He's praying to the Father, you see. He said, God promised I
will hear you. He said, Father, save me from
this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father,
glorify thy name. And then the Father heard him.
Then came their voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified
it and will glorify it again. And Jesus, in verse 30, he answered
and said, this voice came not because of me, but for your sake.
One reason is to show you and me the Father heard him and helped
him. Well, He'll hear us and He'll
help us because of Christ, and through Christ, and by Christ.
Look at Matthew 26. In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Savior, the spotless Lamb
of God, presented Himself to the Father. And He was preparing
to be made sin for His people. In Matthew 26, verse 38, it says,
Then saith He to them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful,
even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch with
me. And he said down in verse 42, O my
father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink
it, thy will be done. And we're told in Luke, that
God heard him because there appeared an angel from heaven and strengthened
him. An angel from heaven strengthened
him. Psalm 69, let's go there. This is the most important right
here, Psalm 69. Acceptable time, the day of salvation,
is when our Lord Jesus hung on that cross, bearing the sins
of his people, suffering, bearing the curse, being made a curse
for us, And he prayed to the Father. Not audibly for everybody
to hear, but that's what we hear here in Psalm 69, is him praying
to the Father. And the Father heard him. Look
here in Psalm 69, 1. He said, Save me, O God, for
the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where
there is no standing. I come in the deep waters where
the floods overflow me. Look down at verse 5, Oh God
thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee.
He really owned our sins to be his sin. He knew no sin, would
not sin and did not sin, but he was made sin and he owned
our sins to be his. He said in verse 6, and he prayed
for his people while he bore the cross. He said, let not them
that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let them not be ashamed for my
sake. Let not those that seek thee
be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for thy sake
I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. Look down at verse 9. He said,
For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches
of them, the reproach that ye have fallen upon me. We know
this is Christ because the Holy Spirit used Paul to tell us,
he quoted this in Romans 15, He says down in verse 13, but
as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable
time, O God. In an acceptable time, that's
what our text says. And he prayed, in an acceptable
time, O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me in the
truth of thy salvation. And our text says, Verse eight,
thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time I have heard thee. And in
a day of salvation have I helped thee. And that's exactly what
the Father did. He heard our Savior and he helped
him. Hebrews 5.7 says this. This actually
would be a good one to look at. Hebrews 5.7. Because this applies to us What it says here, Hebrews 5.7,
it says, "...in the days of His flesh, when He offered up prayers
and supplication with strong crying and tears unto Him that
was able to save Him from death, he was heard in that he feared,
in that he reverenced God in perfection. Though he were a
son, and as a son he needed no help, as the son of God, he is
God. But though he were a son, yet
learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. And being
made perfect, having perfected obedience on behalf of his people,
he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him. Now, by what He did, He is our
salvation. He is our perfect obedience before
the Father, the perfect fulfillment of both tables of the law, the
perfect sacrifice that put away all the sins of all His people.
That's who He is for us. And He says to you that believe
Him, do you fear the Lord Jesus? Do you reverence the Lord Jesus?
Do you believe Him that He is all your salvation? He says he
became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey
him. What does he tell you to do? Come to me. He tells us cast
all our care on him. He tells us to follow him. He
tells us to forsake all else, all other false refuges, all
other relations, all everything, love nothing in this world over
him. He said forsake it all and follow
him. That's what He says to us. And
when you trust Him, we can't trust Him like He trusted the
Father, but when we trust Him by His grace, He will hear you
and He will help you because He fulfilled the promise He made
to the Father and God the Father fulfilled the promise He made
to Him. He heard Him and Christ as a man learned what it is to teach and to lead
and to save and to help His people as our perfect prophet, priest,
and king, as the perfect servant of God, as the author and finisher
of our salvation. And so He will hear you and He
will help you. He's able to save them to the
uttermost that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to
make intercession for them. Christ has not entered into the
holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the
true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence
of God for us. And he will hear you and he will
help you. What a blessed word and a blessed
promise we have, brethren. No matter what your trouble is,
call on the Lord Jesus. That's what He commands. Obey
Him. He commands us, call on Me. When your trouble comes,
come to My throne of grace. And when you call on Him, He
will hear you. In an acceptable time, in His time, when it pleases
Him, when He's accomplished whatever He sent the trouble to accomplish
in you, when He's accomplished it, He'll hear you. He'll hear
you. Now secondly, Let's look at this help. It said,
the Lord God, verse eight, Isaiah 49, eight. He said, in a day
of salvation, have I helped thee? I love how the Lord is speaking
of what Christ will do when he came and walked this earth, but
he's speaking of it in past tense. It's done. It's done. You know, I want you to get this. As God, he needed nothing. He
needed nothing. But our Lord Jesus really became
a man. And he really did, as a man,
he humbled himself and he really became a servant to God. And
he depended on the Father for everything when he walked this
earth. For everything. And he served God in perfect
faith because we couldn't do it. You know, really and truly
the fulfillment of the law is perfect faith in God and perfect
love to our neighbor. That's the fulfillment of the
law. And we couldn't do that. But our Lord Jesus did it for
us and put away all our sin on the cross wherein we haven't
done it. I'm saying brethren, past, present
and future, you have obeyed God in Christ. There is a righteousness
provided and God sees His people as perfect in our Lord Jesus.
Perfect in Him. And God the Father sustained
our Lord Jesus Christ as He walked this earth fulfilling the promise.
God the Father sustained Him throughout His life on this earth. And Christ will do that for His
people. He'll do that for you and me who trust Him. He did
this when He was going to that cross. We've seen this over and
over again. Isaiah 50, verse 6. He said, I gave my back to
the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off their hair.
I hid not my face from shame and spitting, for the Lord God
will help me. He believed God. He believed the promise the Father
made to Him. He said, He will help me. He will help me. And so his word to you and me
down in Isaiah 50 verse 10 is, he says, who among you that feareth
the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, the Lord Jesus,
that walketh in darkness and hath no light, He says, let him
trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. Our Hebrew
said, he's the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey
him. We just heard right there in Isaiah 50 what it is he commands
you to do. What is obedience for a believer?
He says to you, trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon
your God. I know that's too simple for
religious folks and work mongers to say this, that here's the
responsibility He's given to you and me as believers. Trust
in the name of the Lord and stay upon the Lord Jesus. But brethren,
that is the only way you're saved. That's the only way I'm saved.
Salvation is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust
in Him. I'm talking about for everything,
every moment of every day, from the day He gave you faith to
the day He calls you home, the only way you and me are saved
in this world is trusting in Him. When you're tempted in your
flesh to sin, the only way to be saved from that is to trust
Him and call upon the name of the Lord. When troubles come
and trials come, the only way to be saved through that is to
trust the Lord and stay upon Him. And when it comes time to
stand before the august majesty of God, who's holy, holy, holy,
and will by no means clear a sinner, the only way we're gonna stand
before him is having come before his presence trusting in the
name of his dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only
way. Salvation is of the Lord. That means it's of Him from beginning
to end. And it's to us through trusting
in Him and believing on Him. He promises, I will help you. And just like the Father helped
Him, He will help you. He will hear you and He will
help you. Look at 2 Corinthians 5. I'm
going to preach on this soon, I think, because it just keeps
coming back to me in messages. But I mentioned it the other
night in a message. Paul quoted our text. He quoted
our text when he was speaking to the Corinthians. And he said
in 2 Corinthians 5, he said in verse In verse 18, all things are of
God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and
given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
hath committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then,
we're ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you
by us. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
For He has made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. We then, as workers
together with Him, being His ambassadors, beseech you also
that you receive not the grace of God in vain." He's saying,
don't receive this gospel in vain. This gospel's come to you,
don't receive it in vain. For he saith, I've heard thee
in a time accepted in the day of salvation, have I succored
thee? Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day
of salvation. That's our text, brethren. You
see what Paul, for all the problems Corinth had, what did Paul use
to try to help them? He used this gospel of God's
promise and God's covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
said, God heard our Savior. He saved his people. And this
is the day of salvation. Today is the accepted time. And
when you see the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is the
perfect righteousness God demands of his people. And you see, he's
the only one in whom God will receive us. And when you hear
how that God the Father heard him and helped him, and you hear
Christ say, now you trust me, you come to me and you trust
me. And I'll do for you as I'm saving
you and as I'm carrying you the whole way, I'll do for you everything
the Father did for me. I'll hear you, I'll help you,
I'll save you. When you hear that, brother,
that means at all times, The only salvation we have from any
trouble whatsoever is to believe Him. Anybody here that has not
believed on the Lord Jesus, has never trusted Him and never confessed
Him publicly, He said, if you won't confess Me before men,
I won't confess you before My Father. If you're ashamed of
Me before men, I'll be ashamed of you. That's what He said.
And if you've never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, now
is the time of salvation. Today's the day of salvation.
We don't have a guarantee of tomorrow. Today's the day. Believe on Him. And for you that
do believe on Him, you cast your care on Him today just like it's
the first time you ever believed on Him. Brother Cyr, we're coming
to eternity, aren't we? Every day. I talked to my mother about this.
Every day, it gets closer and closer. We're going to meet God.
And there's only one way we're going to be accepted of holy
God, and that's through trusting His Son, believing on His Son. That's the only way. Our sins,
as believers, as those sanctified, you have a new heart where you
see your sin. We don't see all of it, and we
don't see it near as much as we should see it, but we see
it. We see it, and we hate it. And
if the grace of God has taught us anything, it's taught us this.
We can't save ourselves from our sins. We cannot do it. You can't stop yourself from
having wicked thoughts you don't even want to have. Sometimes
you say things and do things and you just look back and think,
why in the world did I say that? Why did I do that? I don't want
to do that. Remember that about one another.
If a brother or sister says something to you that's unkind or does
something that's unkind and we get our tempers flare up and
we get sideways with one another, in a little while the Lord will
speak to you and He'll bring it home to your heart. what he's
done for you all over again. He'll make you know it all over
again, what he's done for you, and he'll make you know that
one that you were speaking to, that's a brother for whom Christ
died. That's a sister for whom Christ
died. And he'll just bring your heart down and bring you to his
feet, and he'll bring you to that brother and sister, and
you'll love him, and you'll forgive him, and you'll be merciful to
him because brethren, In ourselves, you and me don't have one bit
of difference in any of us. Not any. We are sinners, that's
it. It's only in Christ that we're
righteous. It's only in Christ that God
will receive us. You hear Him and you believe
Him and you trust Him, call upon Him. He'll help you. Here's the
third thing the Lord said. Lord God promised to preserve
the Lord Jesus, and He did. He did. He said in verse 8, and
I will preserve thee. He raised our substitute from
the grave, just like He said He would. Even through His whole
life, we see, you know, they wanted to kill our Lord Jesus
many times, but His hour was not come. The accepted time was
not come. The hour. And there was no way
anybody could hurt Him, because God the Father preserved Him.
And brethren, the same is true of you as a believer. Until the
appointed time comes, when we depart from this life and enter
into glory, there is nothing whatsoever that's going to be
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Nothing. Nothing. He preserved Christ
from His enemies, and then when He went to the cross and laid
down His life, He preserved Him from the grave, He resurrected
Him from the grave. Christ raised Himself as God,
but as a man, God the Father raised Him. And now Christ is
preserving us. We can say what the saints of
old said. This is what all God's people
have said in every generation. In Joshua 24, 17, they said,
The Lord our God, He it is that brought us up and our fathers
out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage and which
did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all
the way wherein we went and among all the people through whom we
passed. He's the one that preserved us.
Paul said, I suffer all these things that I suffer for the
gospel's sake. And he said, but I'm not ashamed.
I'm not ashamed. And here's why. He said, for
I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. God our Father preserved His perfect righteous servant,
the Lord Jesus, all through His life and from the grave. And Christ Jesus right now, working
in His people, surrounding His people, protecting His people,
is preserving us every step of the way. And when you close your
eyes in death, you'll immediately open them in the presence of
the Lord. He preserves His people. He preserves His people. Brethren,
Christ redeemed make up His body. We are the fullness of Him. We're
His body. And if He has one member of His
body missing, His body won't be complete. And our Lord Jesus
Christ will not have one member of His body missing. He will
have every single child of God that He paid His precious blood
for and redeemed and bought. He will have us and nothing will
separate us from Him. He will preserve His people. We already were raised in Christ
and sat down at God's right hand in Him. He will preserve us. Now, here's why all this is so,
verse 8. God said, I've given thee for
a covenant of the people. I've given thee for a covenant
of the people. Christ is the covenant, not of
all people, of thee people. He's covenant of thee people.
These people are those God the Father chose by His free grace
before this world was made. Nothing in us, nothing good about
us, nothing that we did for Him to choose us. He chose us because
He would. He chose His people by grace. By grace are you saved. And He
chose us in Christ. and he gave Christ to be the
covenant. Men want to argue and fuss over
covenant doctrine. They can have it. They can have
all that arguing and debating over covenant doctrine. I have
one verse of scripture right here that backs up every other
verse of scripture in the Bible that tells me my covenant is
a man, the God-man mediator of Christ Jesus. That's who my covenant
is. All the promises of God are in Him, yes, and in Him, amen,
to the glory of God by us. He's our covenant King. I'm just
going to read through this. We'll look at this next time,
but here's what that means. Our covenant King who guarantees
His people shall have the inheritance that He bought for us. Verse
8, He said, I've given you for a covenant to establish the earth
to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. We were the desolate,
desolated by our sin, and God the Father told Christ, I've
given you for a covenant so that you can cause your people to
inherit eternal life and all the promises God promised. Christ
is our covenant of redemption. He's the one that freed us from
sin, from the bondage of our nature, redeems us from all our
iniquities as we travel through this life, and will one day redeem
us into glory. He said, verse 9, that thou mayest
say to the prisoners, go forth, and to them that are in darkness,
show yourself. Christ said, men won't come to
the light. They hate the light. They love
darkness and hate the light. What's going to make you come
out of the darkness and come to Him and show yourself? God
gave Christ to be the covenant to say to His people, show yourselves. That's when you come to the light,
come to Christ. That's when you confess He did
all the work. He gave Christ to be a covenant shepherd to
guarantee us full provision through this whole life. Verse nine,
they shall feed in the ways, their pasture shall be in all
high places, they shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the
heat or sun smite them, for he that hath mercy on them shall
lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them,
and I'll make all my mountains away, and my highways shall be
exalted. He's our shepherd. and the covenant
promise to His people is He'll lead us the whole way. We shall
have all this provision by Christ. He's our covenant Savior who
guarantees not one will be lost. Verse 12, Behold, these shall
come from far and lo, these from the north and from the west and
these from the land of thorns. That's what it means. In other
words, He's not going to lose one. He's going to call every
one of His people. That's what it is for Christ to be the covenant.
Now, I want you to have this in your heart. I want you to,
when you leave here today, I want you to keep thinking on this.
I want you to think on this tomorrow, the rest of the week, and the
rest of your days. I want you to think about this.
Reverend, because of the Lord that is faithful, because God
who's faithful, God who saves in a righteous and holy manner
in perfection and has to be perfectly accepted because He is faithful.
He gave His only begotten Son to be the covenant and everything
God promises His people in this book right here is in Christ,
fulfilled by Christ, given to us by Christ, made sure by Christ. Everything. Everything. Our salvation is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Remember what we saw in Romans
4? Salvation is a faith in Christ. It's a faith in Christ that it
might be by grace to end the promise might be sure to all
the seed. He said they're coming from the
north, the south, the east, the west. This promise is sure in
Christ. When He raised Christ, He raised
us and we sat down in Him. We're already there. We're already
there in Christ. That's how sure this is. And
because He heard Christ and because Christ perfected us forever,
when you cry to Him, He will hear you and He will help you
and He will preserve you. That's His promise. That is a
sure promise to His people. I need that promise, don't you?
I need it. We're going to see the second
hour why we need it. One day we have faith when we
leave and it just doesn't take much. It's like we never even
had faith. Faith just vanishes. We need
Christ and the sure salvation we have in Him to keep us and
preserve us all our days, brethren. So you look to Christ in faith.
You call on Him in faith and don't ever stop doing so. That's what He said in Isaiah
50. Do you believe Him? Do you believe His servant? Do
you trust Him and fear Him and reverence Him and know He's the
only way you can be saved? Then He said, you trust in the
Lord and stay upon your God. Trust Him and stay upon Him.
He's our covenant. He's all our salvation. I hope
that's a blessing to you, brethren. Let's go to the Lord. Our gracious
Father. Lord, thank you that you're so
holy and so righteous that you wouldn't trust your people with
this work of salvation, that you put it all in the hands of
your son, our Lord Jesus. Thank you for giving us faith
to trust you and believe you. Lord, don't let us ever take
for granted what a rich blessing you've given to your people by
giving us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to believe. We've
seen things that saints of old just wanted to
see while they walked this earth and you've shown them to us.
Christ has come. He's accomplished it. We get
to see now everything He's done for us, Lord, and You gave us
faith to trust You. What riches You've given us.
Lord, don't let anything in this life take our hearts from You. Don't let us be taken up with
anything else that would come between us and our Lord Jesus.
And Lord, as you do that, as you work that to keep us stayed
upon the Lord, it's painful for us and it hurts us in our flesh. And Lord, we pray you'd comfort
us and keep us. We need you. We need you constantly. You promised you'll hear us and
you'll help us. And Lord, we need you. We pray
for Christ's sake that you'd send a spirit and keep our hearts
trusting you. Keep us comforted knowing Christ
is our covenant. Lord, we pray for your people
everywhere that you do the same for them. Whatever troubles they're
in, our only salvation is your dear Son. Lord, be with your
preachers today as they try to stand and preach your gospel.
Be with your people. Send us a renewal, Lord. Renew us and send us a revival. Cause your spirit to be poured
on us without measure. Make us to believe you and serve you and
be committed to this gospel with everything you've given us, Lord.
We don't have anything but what you gave us. Give us that renewing
that we might do so. We need preachers, Lord. We pray
you'll provide pastors to feed your people and teach this gospel. Lord, we trust that you will
hear us and you'll do these things for us for Christ's sake. We
thank you. We praise you. We ask you, Lord,
continually to forgive us our sin for Christ's sake. Receive
us in him and him alone. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.